


Waving and Drowning

by wreathed



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: 1960s, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Anal Sex, Beaches, First Meetings, First Time, Israel, M/M, Porn With Plot, Speedos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-14
Updated: 2014-09-14
Packaged: 2018-02-17 09:23:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2304704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wreathed/pseuds/wreathed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>There’s a bit in X1, I think, where you say to Wolverine that you met a young man, Erik Lehnsherr, and don’t you say you met him in Israel? I think you say you met him in the sixties in Israel.  Where of course in First Class we don’t meet in Israel, we meet in… I can’t remember where we meet, we meet off the coast of America or somewhere like that, on a yacht.  But I always had this - Michael and I always had this vision of young Charles and young Erik meeting each other on the beach in Tel Aviv, both wearing Speedos… That would have been awesome.</i>
</p><p>(James McAvoy to Patrick Stewart,  <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QIoyIBELUBM#t=03m13s">interview</a> for AdoroCinema)</p><p> </p><p>AU, no powers. Tel Aviv, 1962.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Waving and Drowning

**Author's Note:**

> Beta by the wonderful [Poose](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Poose/pseuds/Poose).

The sun beats down hard on this city, heating up the pavements Charles has had to walk along and the meeting rooms Charles has had to sit in, and he has never welcomed more the cooling breeze of the sea.

Charles has come to the beach for the afternoon, nothing scheduled until tomorrow now that his conference is over. The sand is soft and warm underfoot where he sits, quiet and away from the water. He has left on the white shirt he’s been wearing all day, albeit with the buttons undone and the cufflinks removed, material loose at his wrists. He has noticed his freckles brightening since he has arrived here, and he can feel sunburn developing on the end of his nose. Charles had wanted to not look like an Englishman abroad, but – sun catching any skin he exposes and sweep of hair falling forward, damp with sweat – he is aware that he can’t really prevent himself from looking like a quintessential example of one.

The rest of his suit is stowed in his bag, and he is wearing dark blue Speedos, thankfully barely visible to passers-by thanks to the length of the shirt on him when untucked. Raven had bought them before he’d left; serves him right for telling her he didn’t own any swimwear. She had laughed hysterically at the look on his face when he’d unwrapped them, but she’d also said they might get him some attention, and then she’d assured him he had the build for them and they were the height of fashion.

On a wall not far to one side of Charles, there is a billboard advertising a car in space-age-silver. It gleams in the summer sunshine, confidently displayed as an object every person wants to own regardless of how many or few people can actually afford to buy one. There is a commanding and exciting sense of change here, Charles reflects: enough temporary structures have been built to house the refugees, and Charles could see from here the beginnings of the foundations to skyscrapers.

He turns back to look at the billboard again, only now there is a man standing right front of it, chest rising and falling, looking out to the water. 

Charles’s mouth runs dry. The man is wearing… well, all he’s wearing are an incredibly tight pair of swimming briefs. Rather similar to Charles’s, actually, but in this man’s case they are black in colour and they’re barely covering… him. The bulge to the front of them is obscene, and Charles darts his eyes away for a moment, blushing, before guiltily going back to staring. The man has clearly just returned from swimming in the sea – his entire body is covered in tiny beads of water. Charles takes in his long, strong legs, the muscles on his chest and arms, and imagines licking away every last salty water droplet until his lips were plump and wet and then, in one smooth movement, he would pull the man’s trunks down and–

The man looks right at him. Charles turns away, but not quickly enough. When he looks at the man again, he gives Charles a slow, louche grin and starts walking in his direction. Charles is suddenly aware of his bare legs, the heat on the back of his neck, the thud of his stupid heart.

“Hello,” the man says, in English, and Charles winces in the hot sun at the thought of the signs that he does not belong here – his limp hair, the way his eyes squinted into the bright light as he looked up. “Why are you wearing a dress shirt on the beach?”

And, there it goes again, the thud of his heart and the knot of desire within him tying tighter, as Charles is taken aback – he could not have anticipated that a man with such an incredible body and a strong, handsome face would have such a damn attractive voice too.

Charles has to swallow before he speaks, the dryness of his mouth clicking in his throat. He feels a wave of desire roll low and hard at his stomach, and a nervousness about what to say. Even his tried-and-tested line about mutations in evolution doesn’t come to mind. “Because this is all I have with me. And I don’t want to turn as red as a lobster,” he says. “I’m Charles.”

“Erik,” says Erik. “I’d love it if you would take it off,” he says, and Charles thinks _oh my God_. “Might this encourage you?” Erik holds out a bottle of suntan lotion. Charles’s eyes move to the large hands, the long fingers wrapped around the bottle.

“Alright,” he replies quietly. “Thank you, Erik.”

Charles pulls off the shirt and puts it away in his bag, suddenly feeling very exposed, and puts a hand out for Erik to squirt some of the lotion into. But Erik has already seated himself behind Charles and has the bottle open.

“Do you mind?” Erik asks, gesturing with his hands. _Mind?!_ Charles thinks, wondering what good deed he’s done to deserve this, but instead he says aloud, slightly choked, “No, not at all.”

Erik laughs at that, and rubs a smear of the thick lotion across Charles’s back. Charles has to bite down on his bottom lip to stop himself moaning humiliatingly at just how good Erik’s touch feels. His hands are skilled, relaxing the muscles around his neck and shoulders once he’s done with his back, rubbing the lotion in, and Charles – sitting as he is and considering what he’s wearing – is simply unable to hide the fact that he has a ridiculously inappropriate erection visibly straining at the front of his tiny swimming trunks. He dearly hopes Erik somehow doesn’t notice.

“Thank you, my friend,” Charles manages, voice strained, just at the moment when he feels as if he can’t hold off rolling his hips against thin air any longer. “I’m sure that’ll do it.”

“Are you certain that’s all you want?” Erik says, shifting forward so that he is sitting right behind Charles, his legs to either side of him, and _presses_ against the small of his back. Erik is hard too, his breath in Charles’s ear is to the time of the gently breaking waves.

“My hotel room’s just a street away,” Charles murmurs. “But I don’t know anything about you. I don’t know who you are.”

“I’m Erik,” says Erik, as if that’s all Charles needs to know. “And I want you. I saw you when I came out of the sea. Your legs stretched out, your pink mouth, and those blue eyes. I want to bite down on your neck, and I want to kiss every one of those freckles on your shoulders, and then I want to take you and fuck you so hard you can’t think of anything but the feel of my body and the sound of my name.” Erik’s voice is as ragged as Charles has ever heard any man’s to be. “Now you know a little more about me, is there anything we disagree on?”

“Not at all,” Charles replies, dizzyingly hard now, wondering how he’s going to make it all the way to the hotel room. “Erik, come with me.”

And he does.

*

Charles may not know anything about Erik, but he seems to be a man who makes good on his promises.

On the beach, they avoid each other’s gazes as they shuffle back on just enough clothes to be decent. Charles is disappointed to see Erik’s body disappearing under a white polo shirt, neat trousers, lace up shoes, all those muscles being covered up. But, he reminds himself, he will see them all again soon; he will see every last part of him.

Once dressed up enough to walk through the lobby of the upmarket hotel that Charles is staying in, Charles smiles shyly at Erik and shows him the way.

In the hotel room, they don’t waste a second. Charles had anticipated a temporary period of awkwardness, in which he might have offered Erik a drink and together they might have worked up to something more, but as soon as Charles shuts and locks the door with two quiet _clicks_ Erik grabs him by the shoulders and puts his mouth on Charles’s like Charles is all he’s ever wanted. Erik’s tongue sweeps against Charles’s, kissing him deep and slow, and Charles gives a low moan.

Sand comes away from Erik in Charles’s hands, and Charles can still smell Erik’s damn suntan lotion. The thin blinds are already closed, left that way by Charles earlier in the day to try and stop the room heating up too much, but slivers of brightness sneak through; when Charles at last pulls away there is a long line of yellow sun slicing Erik’s elegant collar bone. Light part-blocked like this, the sun to soon begin setting, Erik’s skin glows golden.

“Get this damn thing off,” Charles says, pulling at Erik’s shirt, and he’s aware he sounds more than a bit desperate but it’s worth it for the way Erik laughs: gentle, low, sending a rumble through Charles’s chest and down his spine.

“I could say the same to you,” Erik replies, and Charles cannot recall any other casual encounter being quite this _tender_ before.

They pull off their own shirts, and Charles pushes Erik pushes back so that he is sitting on the edge of his bed, unwilling to submit to Erik all of the situation’s agency. He then sits astride Erik, wriggling in his lap with a lazy smirk and thinking. Thinking back to his first sight of Erik, after he had come from the water. He bends to give a long lick to the line of skin above Erik’s clavicle and, _yes_ , he can taste where sweat and sea water has collected here, the tang on the tip of his tongue.

His erection hasn’t entirely disappeared since the beach, but now he feels the true ache of it and, still in Erik’s lap, Charles rolls his hips.

“No more messing about,” murmurs Erik in his ear. “I bet you’re not always quite as polite as you look, Charles.”

And Charles aches to see the taut lines of Erik’s body once more, so he kneels in front of him and pulls off his shoes and trousers. Charles looks up at Erik through his lashes from his position, kneeling between Erik’s legs, and Erik’s eyes briefly shutter closed.

Like this, Charles can see Erik’s erection pushing hard against the fabric of his incredibly tight trunks. He wraps one hand around Erik’s length, through the swimwear, and Erik groans.

Salt still on his tongue, Charles remembers; he had imagined this. Mouth parting in anticipation, he pulls down the trunks to Erik’s ankles, where they slip off to the floor. He runs his eyes over Erik’s impressive, flushed erection.

He wraps his lips around Erik’s head and sucks at just the tip, hollowing his cheeks. Still wearing trousers and his own tight Speedos underneath them, he is made very aware of the weight and heat of his erection, which only grows harder as Erik tips his head back and starts trying to thrust minutely forward, deeper into Charles’s mouth.

“Don’t tease,” Erik growls above him.

Charles smirks around Erik’s cock, then slides his mouth off. “You were the one teasing me, standing on the beach like that. I’ll do what I like.”

Erik colours, hooks his hands around Charles’s underarms and pulls him up for a crushing kiss. “The mouth on you,” Erik says.

Then Erik stands up, his slick cock rubbing against Charles’s belly.

“I should pull these bloody things apart,” Erik says, making short work of the buttons holding together Charles’s suit trousers. Charles toes off his own socks and shoes.

Erik’s eyes flash when he gets down to Charles’s trunks – Charles looks down at himself, at the flush down to his navel and then lower, where the outline of his cock is clearly visible. Then a wide grin spreads over Erik’s face just as his wonderful fingers pull Charles’s swimwear down to the floor and Charles breathes hard, his erection no longer constricted but nonetheless a heavy weight he is aware of, jutting away from him so very obviously. He’s desperate for Erik to touch his cock; he hasn’t even been _touched_ yet, for God’s sake. Charles sweeps his errant hair out of his eyes and looks at Erik, widening his eyes.

“Shall I lie face up or face down?” Charles asks him. “When you fuck me?”

“Face down,” Erik replies, his voice near-dangerous. “Legs over the edge of the bed.”

Charles complies.

“There’s stuff at the bottom of my suitcase,” Charles says. “By the wardrobe.”

Erik locates the lube and returns. Positioned as he is, unable to see, Charles is surprised when Erik’s body covers his.

“I think you said something about _fucking me so hard I can’t think of anything but_ – ” Charles begins, a little cockily, but he is cut off when Erik lightly scrapes his teeth down Charles’s neck. It makes Charles momentarily thrust against the bed sheets in frustration.

“Oh. If you’re in a rush…” Erik says, and Charles moans again when Erik sits back a little and presses one slick finger into him.

Then Erik’s _mouth_ takes a languid route down Charles’s back, kissing spots between his shoulder bones – his freckles, more obvious than usual, it must be. He can feel Erik’s breath warmer and warmer down the base of his spine until – oh, Charles breathes in _hard_ – Erik licks around the finger he’s got inside of Charles already.

“Don’t tease,” Charles appeals.

“Hypocrite,” Erik says against his arsehole, and then, moving his mouth away, “Turn so you’re on your back, I’ve changed my mind.”

Carefully, Charles turns himself over, Erik’s finger still inside him, and grins at seeing it all again – the half-light of the room, _Erik_ , hard and surely getting impatient himself now, the light in his eyes.

Erik inserts a second finger, and Charles fucks himself on them, wanting to make Erik act as desperate as he is. He groans a little every time he feels the press of Erik’s knuckles at his entrance, all too aware that they could both find so much more pleasure if he was being fucked deeper. He would never have guessed that Erik wouldn’t have wanted to rush.

“Erik, please, _please_ ; please fuck me.” Charles feels his mouth move to form the words, but he is barely aware of himself like this, only aware of his cock and his arse and wanted to be filled.

“Have it your way,” Erik says quietly, and removes his two fingers. Charles moans at the loss of contact, twists against the bed sheets. “I won’t hold back on you. I’m not that sort of man.” 

Erik sinks his cock into him gradually, large hands gripping his arse hard, and Charles hasn’t been filled like that – thick, long, hard and sinfully slowly – in a long time, possibly never.

“Touch me,” Charles breathes, his hips canting upwards, his jaw slack. He wouldn’t like to think too much about how he must look like. Erik is beginning to fuck him now, his hands moving from Charles’s arse to his thighs.

“ _There_ ,” Erik sighs with choked-off satisfaction. “I wanted to wait until you begged.” With one hand, he takes Charles’s cock, hand still slick from slicking up Charles earlier, and it feels absolutely amazing.

Erik changes angle slightly and thrusts more deeply, finding the spot that makes Charles arch off the bed and grip tightly to the bed as if to anchor himself.

“You look so ruined,” Erik says between breaths as he thrusts, harder and harder, his hand still on Charles’s cock, and Charles might just manage to forget about everything except Erik’s body and his name after all.

“Erik–” he cries out, and then his mouth falls silently open as he spurts hot all over Erik’s hand.

“Fuck, fuck–” Erik says as Charles clenches around him, and he fills Charles from the inside as he comes.

Charles smiles up at Erik once Erik’s pulled out. All the tension that was building up within him has gone. Erik looks back at him, his own smile only the hint of one, before collapsing back onto the bed.

“You can stay,” Charles says, mostly out of politeness and not really thinking, gesturing vaguely to the room around him, and Charles falls asleep.

*

Charles wakes up with a start in the small hours before drifting back to sleep again. He can feel where Erik’s come has dripped out of him, his thighs sticky in the hot room, but he is alone. He hadn’t seriously expected the case to be otherwise.

*

When Charles awakens in the morning proper, he showers and lets his mind take him through last night all over again. He comes quickly, and afterwards he feels a trenchant stab of disappointment that he will never see Erik again. It’s stupid; he doesn’t even know him, but whatever sort of life Erik had, their opportune meeting had cumulated in a bloody good fuck.

He checks out and picks up a hire car from a place in town (he thinks of the silver one on the billboard again; the one he is in is blue, a little worn-out but well-cared-for). It takes him a little over an hour to drive to Haifa. He could have flown back home yesterday evening, his conference having ended then, but taking the opportunity to visit a friend he hadn’t seen in years – even if he had to sweat in a noisy automobile to get to him – had been too good to miss.

Daniel Shomron greets him with a handshake, then a warm hug with a slap on the back.

“It’s great to see you again, Charles,” says Daniel. “And to show you what we do.”

“Not at all,” Charles replies. “I’m fascinated,” because, really, he was fascinated by everything.

At the clinic, he meets so many people with difficult stories, complex circumstances; all grateful to be here, to have had a chance both to survive and to overcome their trauma. Everyone has lost most of the people that they used to know, and Charles thinks of Raven, and his selfish self, and all of life’s difficulties he’s somehow managed to skate right over, free to be clever and wealthy and trusting.

After meeting some patients, he meets some of the staff. The effort that has gone into the tour, the shaking of hands, it all reminds Charles of other visits he’s taken that had precluded philanthropy. He wonders if Daniel believes he is going to donate. If he brings it up, Charles could be convinced rather easily – it’s clearly important work, and he could always donate anonymously if he needed to…

“And this is another one of our volunteers,” Daniel says as they walk into the next room. “Mr Lehnsherr.”

Charles smiles politely, until he looks up properly and sees–

“Oh!” Charles says, feeling himself beginning to flush as, there it is, that slow smile that crosses Erik’s face that has the instantaneous power to send a great deal of blood rushing downwards – even now, even though they are surrounded by cool, white walls.

They shake hands. The simple touch sends a reverberation through him.

Someone in the corridor calls for Daniel’s attention and he leaves the two of them alone, the door swinging shut behind him from a light breeze coming in through the window. Charles has to remind himself to keep his feet anchored to the spot and not just push Erik up against the goddamn wall.

“Hello again! Erik. How are you? Do you live in Haifa?” Charles babbles, unsuave.

“Sorry,” Erik says, although he does not look especially sorry. “I don’t tend to stick around.”

“Oh,” Charles says. “OK.” There are a hundred reasons nothing to do with him why that might be the way it needs to be. He has met men like himself and Erik with wives, with important jobs, with itchy feet, and Erik might have all three of those things for all he knows. Still, he has to do _something_. “Let me give me my address and telephone number, at least.”

“Why?” Erik says. He looks absolutely gorgeous, same smart polo shirt Charles took him out of yesterday. “We don’t even live in the same country. I’m sure you have a roster of far more geographically convenient one night stands. Soho? Manchester?”

“I live in New York state,” Charles corrects him. “I was born there. Never picked up the accent, I guess.”

“A displaced family. Just like mine, then,” Erik replies drily. Charles couldn’t even pretend to miss his meaning. “I left because I had to drive back here for the start of my shift. And because I reckoned you didn’t _really_ want to see me in the morning.”

“Not at all,” Charles says. “I haven’t stopped thinking about–”

“You seem good, Charles,” Erik interrupts, standing straight and inscrutable. “Well-cared-for, well-connected. I’m not a kind man, you know.”

“How can you say that?” Charles says, looking Erik right in his sharp, serene eyes. “You are here, helping people. Look at all the good in you.”

“I have done some evil things,” Erik says. “And I do not volunteer here to help others, per se. Charles, you don’t know me,””

“I know. But.” For a moment, Charles feels as if he is choking. The window is still open; he has to lower his voice to an urgent, hoarse whisper that Erik has to lean slightly further towards him to hear. “I still want a repeat of last night. Further versions. I’m hardly the sort of man to believe in signs or gods, but of all the places I could come to and all the places you could be–”

“You think you want me. And I think you are a man used to getting what you want. Did you think I was wealthy like you? Am I what you expected?”

“I didn’t expect anything, Erik. You came to me out of the water. Out of the blue. You were not there, and then you were.”

“I’m here to convince these people to stay in this country,” Erik says. “It’s not altruism.”

Charles feels his nails dig in as his hands clench. Their eyes are locked, but there’s space between. He wants the two of them to be touching.

“When I saw you for the first time,” Charles says. “When I really didn’t know anything about you. You were perfect. But nobody’s perfect, are they?”

Charles takes a business card from his pocket. Holds it out.

Daniel opens the door.

Erik pulls the card from Charles’s hand.

“Sorry to keep you waiting,” Daniel says, and Charles follows him out with one final stupid look over his shoulder. Erik looks right back at him, expression unreadable.

Erik isn’t perfect. Nobody’s perfect. But he’s real. Charles thinks of him all the way home, and for a long time after.

*

They meet again in Central Park rather than on Frishman Beach, and two years have passed, and they’re wearing coats and scarves and gloves, and it’s snowing. But Erik’s voice sounds exactly the same.

“Hello,” Erik says.

**Author's Note:**

> Please come and say hi on [tumblr](http://wreathedwith.tumblr.com/)!


End file.
